Monday, March 7, 2011

Business as usual

It is down to three of us here in the workspace now, as last Friday really and truly was Ms. Antisocial’s last day. My contracting supervisor stopped by this morning to acknowledge as much. I know that lately I’ve had nothing but good things to say about my boss, but I have to admit that as last week went along and the evidence that Ms. A. was leaving mounted, I found it almost unsettlingly odd that my boss never addressed the situation himself. Granted, it wouldn’t have made any difference either way, and I’m not sure how he could have acknowledged it: an e-mail to me, Mr. Voluble and Normal-ish Dude? Calling the three of us into his office one at a time, or all together? Maybe he was afraid that if he even so much as spoke to us about it, that would be perceived by Ms. A. as talking about her behind her back, more fuel for her rampant paranoia, and might have made the end of the week even more unpleasant all around. So perhaps he chose to let sleeping dogs lie, as it were. Apparently Ms. A. took some kind of parting shot at my boss on Friday via e-mail, but he alluded to that fact this morning without coming out and explaining exactly what it entailed, and I didn’t pry. Honestly I’m just glad the tension level in the room has dropped to an entirely negligible amount.

The other newsworthy thing mentioned by my boss this morning was that he is deeply skeptical about our alleged office move happening by the end of the month. And he makes some valid points. The end of March is three and a half weeks away at this point, and as of yet we still have gotten zero information from the powers that be in terms of concrete details of the move. I was asking for info weeks ago in terms of what we would be responsible for ourselves and what would be handled by whatever moving services the agency makes use of, and what the timetable would look like, and I was referred to my immediate supervisor on the government side since she happens to be the lucky person tasked with coordinating the move in addition to her normal duties. As my contracting manager pointed out, she is out of the office all this week, so it will be March 14 at the earliest when she might start disseminating concrete move info. That seems a bit up-against-the-wall for any government office to do much of anything, let along physically shut down, pack up and relocate.

I’m really looking forward to being able to ride the VRE every day, not only because I’ll have more time to read and/or watch DVDs, less time behind the wheel of my car and no time on the Metro, so it’s a bummer to have the office move delayed. But it could be worse, as my boss was coming as close as he ever comes to griping when he pointed out that he tends to pay for parking on a month-to-month basis and he really needs to know well before April 1 if he is going to be parking during that month in one garage or another. So I will hang in there and see what happens. It’s always an adventure.